Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

86 EFFICIENCY METHODS At the Ferracute Works 25 per cent, extra is paid.1 The custom of making it worth the worker’s while to have “ the stop-watch put on him ” (as the workers who have been irritated have phrased it), seems fairly well established, and worthy of imitation —though with some forethought and caution. Mr. Sanford Thompson’s article is one of the best that can be read on time-study; he analyzes the job of making a mould for concrete into its elements in a clear and lucid way which makes it quite a model for a time-study beginner. Now as to the investigation. There are really two distinct processes necessary for each industrial operation studied, and the first must be fully carried out and completed before the second is attempted. The confusion of the two, in theory and in practice, has been another fertile source of the unpopularity of time-study. The first process is primarily analytical and critical. It consists of dividing the operation into small elements, each a single motion, or two or three combined if they cannot be parted. The average time taken for each motion will be incidentally noted where feasible, but not much stress is laid on such time observation, as the motions themselves are about to be modified. These separate actions are now carefully studied in order to ascertain whether they can be simplified, rendered less fatiguing, or even omitted altogether. Time obser- vations will be useful for purposes of comparison, 1 Parkhurst, “ Applied Methods of Scientific Management.”